


wherever you will go

by sunflowerscully (allthelight)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Comfort, F/M, On the Run, Post-Episode: s09e19-20 The Truth, Proposals, discussions of marriage and the cancer arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29583009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/sunflowerscully
Summary: "There are three items on the table: a ring, an unopened box of hair dye, and a packet of sunflower seeds."Being on the run isn't easy, but they always come back to each other in the end. A moment post 'The Truth'.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Kudos: 11





	wherever you will go

**Author's Note:**

> I'm relatively new to the game so I apologise if there are about a thousand fics like this one out there. This takes place in a canon-compliant world but honestly if you want to pretend that IWTB and the revival aren't part of it then go ahead. God knows that's what I do :p
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

There are three items on the table: a ring, an unopened box of hair dye, and a packet of sunflower seeds.

The sunflower seeds are unconnected to the others. They’d found them down the side of the passenger seat. God only knows how long they’d been there – this wasn’t even their car – and she’d warned him not to eat them but he’d laughed and done it anyway. She’d been driving and had only managed to pull her eyes from the road long enough to see the face he pulled before he spat the half-chewed mess into an empty drinks cup. _I told you so, s_ he’d sighed, but sighed with a smile, and his resulting grin had given her an urge to say it over and over again so that it would stay.

The unopened box of hair dye sits there innocently enough, as though it didn’t cause the appearance of the other object. She’d bought it earlier, trying not to but probably looking every bit like the fugitive she was that necessitated its purpose. She’d gone for brown – blonde was sold out – and when she came back with it he looked almost disappointed. _What’s wrong with your face,_ she’d asked, meaning to make it a joke, but she was tired and fed-up and it came out with more bite than she intended.

_Nothing,_ he’d said, but he’d looked like a petulant child, and at her raised eyebrow he’d sighed and said, _Just gonna miss your real hair, is all._

Well her current colour wasn’t even her real hair and she’d told him as much. _Besides, you’ve never even been able to properly see my hair._

_I know that,_ he’d huffed, _but I just like what I can see._

It had been the huffing that had gotten to her. The brief excitement of being fugitives had worn off and she was tired of motel rooms and fake names, and she was sick of greasy food and always being slightly dirty because it was impossible to get clean, and she missed her son so badly that her stomach ached and she sometimes thought she’d die from it. But here she was, this was her choice, and he couldn’t even just shut up and just let her dye her hair for him because it was for him, wasn’t it? She didn’t want to dye her hair. She didn’t want to be someone else, not in the slightest. But here she was, brown hair dye in hand, and if he wanted her with him like he kept mumbling into her shoulder, like he kept promising into her skin, then he just better suck it up and let her do it so help her God…

In return, because he’s never been one to be cowed, to back away from the fight (isn’t that the whole reason they’ve ended up here?), he’d yelled back and soon the two of them were flinging things at each other that they didn’t mean at all, but at the same time they meant completely. Deep insecurities, months of loneliness – years of loneliness, really – things they’d never been able to say, came out underneath all of the cheap insults that had been used so many times they didn’t even hurt anymore. There was an _I love you_ under the noise, there was _I can’t do this without you._ There was _you’re the reason I’m a whole person, please don’t ever leave me. I have lived without you and I hated every second of it. None of it means anything if you’re not here, don’t you see?_

And she did hear it, she heard what he was not saying, but she also heard what he did, and it had been impossible to stop now that she was fired up, as hot as the hair colour that had started it all. _You know what,_ she’d said eventually, _it’s not like I’m doing this for fun, Mulder. I’m here because of you. I’m doing this because of you._

_For, s_ he’d meant to say. _I’m doing this for you._ As in _that’s what I’m fighting for, Mulder. You and me._ But she realised her mistake too late, when his face had gone momentarily slack and had then hardened again.

_Well don’t then. I’m not making you stay here,_ he’d said, voice tight, and had snatched up the keys from the bedside table and stormed out, the door slamming behind him.

_Good job at remaining inconspicuous, s_ he’d muttered, hands on her hips. Then she’d sighed, not particularly worried about him coming back. He always did, didn’t he? Besides, she had all of their money.

Even so, as she’d went to pick up the box to do her hair – because fuck him, because this was her life too now, because it was for _them_ – she’d hesitated and immediately cursed herself for doing so. The anger had dissipated into just a deep weariness and she suddenly didn’t have the desire to throw her hair in his face, to throw anything at all. She’d left the box on the table next to the sunflower seeds he’d brought in yesterday when they arrived (why hadn’t he just thrown them out? Why hadn’t she?), sat down on the bed, and waited.

He’d come crashing through the door about an hour later, eyes wild and brilliant, her name on his lips before remembering that it probably wasn’t a good idea to be shouting it about the place. She’d seen him do it, seen him go to call out of her out of habit. She’s missed him calling her name, more than she’d like to admit. It reminds her of darkened forests and muddy fields and a life that she should have appreciated more when she had it.

_You’re still here,_ he’d said, and she’d wanted to scoff at him. As if she’d ever be anywhere else.

_You took the car,_ is what she’d went with instead, and had watched him nod, swallow the information, and hold something out to her.

_Marry me._

In an instant the breath had been sucked from her body and she’d fought the urge to laugh. One fight, not even their worst, and he’d come running back in here with a ring. God, was there anything more cliché? Is that what he thought she _wanted?_ All these years and he still didn’t have a goddam clue…

But she hadn’t laughed. She’d just sighed again and asked him, _Why?_

Here he’d faltered, his lips worked overtime to make something come out, and when nothing stuck, he’d groaned and thrown it on the table. It had landed in the middle of the sunflower seeds and the box of hair dye, begging the question of which came first.

And then it was as it is now, with both of them sitting at the edge of the bed staring at it, wondering how something so small could look so dangerous and have them both afraid.

Scully goes first. Not looking at him, she says, “I just can’t believe you thought that would be a good idea.”

“Really?” He doesn’t look away from it either. “With my track record, I’d say it’s one of my better ones.”

The self-deprecating shit isn’t going to wash with her now. Not when she’s wasted some of their money on hair dye she’s never going to use.

“I mean really, Mulder. A ring, for God’s sake. Why?”

“The usual reasons.” He shrugs. “I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“And you thought a ring was necessary to prove that?”

“Seemed like a good idea.”

She rolls her eyes. “We’re literally fugitives together, Mulder. Nothing says devotion more than that.”

“Well I thought you’d appreciate something more concrete.”

“Something to chain myself to you, you mean? Another way to make sure I don’t leave you?”

He looks briefly stricken. “Is that how you’d see it? Us being married as some kind of chain?”

_Yes,_ she wants to bite out. _That’s how you see it, isn’t it? You see it like you see kisses in hallways. A means to an end._ But that’s temper talking. That’s tiredness. That’s not the truth.

“No,” she sighs, deflating. “No, I wouldn’t see it like that.”

He nods, but she recognises the look of relief that washes over him. The minute details of his face are more familiar to her than her own. Sometimes when she wakes in the middle of the night she studies his face in his sleep and marvels at how well she managed to remember it, at how accurate her memories were when they were all she had. She used to picture he was beside her all those nights she was alone, that his face was on the pillow next to her, and she found she’d memorised every little line, every little crinkle. For medical school it had taken her months to memorise the anatomy of the face, every muscle, nerve, and blood vessel. It had taken early mornings and late nights and so many flashcards she’d drowned in them and in the end she’d still only done average on the exam. With Mulder it’s like she’s always had this knowledge, that one day she closed her eyes, pictured his face, and found it was as clear as if she’d still been looking at it.

But memorising isn’t the same as understanding. She could memorise him down to his last pore and it wouldn’t be enough if she didn’t understand.

“Did you really think I’d say yes?” she asks, when she silence gets too long.

He shifts, laughs a little. “I, uh, I didn’t really think that far ahead.”

She laughs a little, too. Has to. “You really are crazy, Mulder.”

“You still sticking with that line, Scully? After everything we’ve seen?”

“Just because it may or may not have been the truth doesn’t make it any less crazy.” She lets her gaze go to the ring. “And it doesn’t make this any less crazy. To go and pull a-a proposal from _nowhere-”_

He holds up a finger. “I didn’t pull it from nowhere.”

“Oh, really?” She purses her lips, feeling her face settle into that familiar disbelief. She likes getting to be _them_ , even if it does have to be after a half-assed proposal. They spend so much of everyday pretending to be somebody else, she wonders if one day she’ll have to try to be herself. “You’ve never thought about it before.”

“I’ve never _mentioned_ it. I’ve thought about it, though.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Back, uh, back then, you know?” He taps the space between his eyebrows, slightly to the right of his nose. “ _Before.”_

Oh. Back when the only things she could taste were her own blood and total body irradiation, and the anger at the injustice of it all had only been surpassed by the deep sadness at the fact that she was going to be another person who just left him behind, alone.

It seems trite to think it now, but she’d wondered. A brief, silly thought that had flitted in one morning when her head had been pounding, her stomach had been rolling with every heartbeat, and she’d realised that this was all she’d had to look forward to for the rest of her life. It had began as thoughts about what other people died with when they died at her age. Those people had families. Partners. Children. Friends. And she didn’t have any of those things, except maybe the first. Unconventional, sure, but just as meaningful, maybe more, and maybe he would… maybe they could…

But then her nose had begun to bleed, almost painfully so, and she’d rolled over, too heartsick to wonder about it anymore.

“Really?” She asks now, softened by the thought of Mulder all those years ago, impossibly-soft Mulder with his refusal to believe in the truth in front of him. She’s the only person he would do that for. “You thought about marrying me?”

“Yeah.” He swallows as he nods, head and throat bobbing at the same moment. “Not – not out of pity, before you start. It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like, Mulder?” She asks gently.

He looks thoughtful, deeply so, and maybe, like her, he’s lost in the memory of what was, and what almost could have been.

“I wanted a life with you,” he says at last. Simply but carefully, as though even now there are some things he cannot speak about. “I wanted to give you a life. And I couldn’t do that, couldn’t give you all the things you wanted or you were gonna miss so I thought about giving you the next best thing.” He drops his eyes from hers, looks down at his hands. “Chickened for too long, in the end. Got a coward’s way out.”

He’s not a coward. He’s never been a coward. She’s trying to tell him that, working on a way to say it that doesn’t sound cheap, when he looks back up at her. “Would you have said yes?”

It’s a long moment but she doesn’t need it. She’s just drawing out the inevitable. Maybe she’s the coward.

“No,” she says softly. “I couldn’t have let you do that, Mulder. I wouldn’t have let you shackle yourself to a dying woman, no matter how much I-” _needed you, wanted you, wished for you –_ “No.”

“Really going with the whole ‘marriage is a chain’ thing today.” He laughs briefly, amusement in his eyes, before becoming serious again. “Scully…”

“It wouldn’t have been fair, Mulder. It would have been full of vomit and blood and pain.” God, so much pain. He doesn’t look away and she feels her insistency keenly in her chest, the desire to just make him understand. “I couldn’t have given you a proper marriage.”

His forehead crinkles and she knows, even without knowing exactly what, that he’s misunderstood. “I didn’t care about any of that, Scully, God-”

“No, I know,” she insists, feeling her insides twist at what he must have thought. “But I couldn’t have given you _anything_ , Mulder. I couldn’t have given you any good memories of being married to me. And how could I do that to you? How could I be so selfish and take from you and then just leave you with nothing?”

“My motives weren’t exactly selfless,” he says with a wry smile, “if that makes you feel any better.”

“It wouldn’t have been right,” she says firmly, but gentle too. The gentleness that was reserved solely for him and for their son. She supposes now it’s just his. “Just like it wouldn’t be right now.”

She shifts closer to him on the edge of the bed and puts her hand on his knee. “It can’t just be because we’ve had a fight, and it can’t just be because we’re afraid.” She strokes the fabric of his jeans with her thumb when really all she wants to do is cup her hand around his face. “It has to be the right way, Mulder.”

He huffs softly, and what before was their undoing she just finds rather endearing. “Never would’ve pegged you for the big white wedding type.”

Smiling, she shakes her head. Even the thought of it gives her a headache. “God, no. Could you imagine?” She laughs lightly. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” His face is earnest, and it’s like nine years ago all over again. “What does it have to be?”

She takes his fingers, threads them through with her own. Gets impossibly close to his face as if to say _here’s the truth, Mulder, between you and me. Here’s where it all is._

_“_ Us,” she whispers simply. “It has to be _us.”_

It has to be Mulder and Scully, like it always has been and forever shall be. Til death do us part has nothing on them, and that’s why it has to be _them._ It’s just the way of it. Anything else feels like tempting fate.

He exhales with a breath and smiles tenderly. He doesn’t actually really ever _say_ the words – neither of them do – but she knows. As he opens his arm she lets herself move into them, and she moves with him, perfectly in sync, until they’re lying face to face on a motel bed, arms around each other, never letting go.

“I just wanted to give you something, Scully,” he whispers, his lips so close to her forehead that she can almost feel them pressing there. “That’s what it was. You’ve given up your whole life. I just wanted you to get something for a change.”

An ache, deep in her chest and yet right on the surface. A culmination of heartaches. But they’re not his, doesn’t he see? Their hers. And she’s already said that she’d acquire them again.

“You don’t owe me anything,” she whispers, and then stops short, laughs lightly in disbelief and lowers her eyes. “You said that to me once.”

She feels his smile rather than sees it. That awkward, boyish smile that he would hope would get him out of something if there were any place to go. “You remember that, huh?”

“How could I forget it?”

How could she indeed. She’d memorised it. Replayed it on a loop in her mind. Different parts of it had stuck out at different times, but she remembered that. Remembered being irritated by it. _It’s my goddam quest, too, s_ he’d wanted to yell. He didn’t owe her shit. Afterwards, later, maybe. But he never owed what he thought he did and it didn’t matter because she’d never held him to it anyway. Partners, to the very end.

“We never talked about it,” he says now.

“There was never a right time.”

“And then it was too late.”

“And then it was too late,” she agrees.

He narrows his eyes briefly. “Do we need to talk about it now?”

“No,” she says. “I don’t think we do.”

It’s the truth. What else is there to talk about? She’s made her choice. She makes a new one every day. Besides, it’s unspoken, isn’t it? What she said all those years ago rings true even now. Some things really are just better left unexplained.


End file.
